I love the sim. But it encourages copycat behavior to win. And I get so sick of some of that crap that it just makes me want to puke.

I mean, really... Do I really need to see ANOTHER Joss vs. Maddux game where Hojo plays errorless ball at SS while Gavvy Cravath hits the game winning HR? Am I sick of seeing people dump their $200k backups for AAA guys worth 10 times that? Please... Not another team winning with a bunch of 450 PA guys and AAA.... And super please, no saving Bob Milacki all season to start 3 games in the playoffs.

I've had enough of that 5H1T. Time to flush it down the crapper. At least for one $80m league.

Here's the stuff I hate, and how I'm going to counter it for this league.

(1) Fatigue strategy... The WORST part of the sim by far. To try to stop it, we're going to
- Require team total of 1500 IP/162
- Require team total of 5500 PA/162
- Require 7 hitters (all non-catchers) with at least 600 PA/162 each. (not enforced by wizard, have to check this manually)
- (Playing rule) - No player with a fatigue rating of 97 or less can start a game on offense or pitching. I will do random checks (I will not check each game result) but I call upon each owner to play honestly, and I ask opponents to report any violations. The first 2 violations will result in forfeits of entire series vs team, the 3rd violation would make your team playoff ineligible.

(2) The same players, over and over....
- Only 1930-2012 players are eligible. No Joss, Cy Young, or other deadball cookies. HR's just might be feasible
- Small blacklist (I'll consider additional player suggestions for the BL until the league is built. Should be about the first 10 signups or so.)
- Hitters: Hojo, Boggs, Raines, Coleman, Roberts, Willie Wilson, Ruth
- Pitchers: Pedro, Maddux, Milacki, Dizzy Dean

(3) Saving pitchers for the playoffs
- (playing rule) Any SP in any playoff game must have started at least 20 games for that team during the regular season.

(4) AAA / WW / DH / Clones/ Live Play
- I hate the way all that crap is used. It's all banned.

(5) Lack of HR hitting
- The player years eligible should eliminate deadball pitchers
- But to make it better, we'll require each stadium to have NO negative HR rating to either side. Zero is OK, -1 is not.

Ok, I think that will make a difference. It will at least make everyone try a few players who aren't normally open league types.

1) 5500 PA, not 550 :)
2) Add Ruth to the blacklist. I'm sick of his end years just as much as I am the twenties.
3) Instead of 8 600PA hitters, can you make it 7? There just isn't a whole lot of variety at C if you have to find a 600PA guy, and having one platoon (whether at C or somewhere else) seems reasonable to me.

I like this idea but would lower the fatigue rating to 95 for starting position players and go 90-95 with SPs. Another way to go about it with pitchers is to require that at least four SPs have at least 25-30 starts for your team to be playoff eligible.

Sorry, I'm firm on the fatigue level. I don't want fatigued players playing. If I could mandate 100%, I'd do that.

I also don't see an advantage to specifying the number of starts.... The rules and player pool will allow 3,4,5 or 6 man rotations, and even spot starters. However, the spot starters will not get a chance to start in the playoffs.

Polymerguy, let me know. The rules aren't very subtle, they're pretty much out there.... No AAA, draft lots of IP and PA, and don't save players for the playoffs or play fatigued players. The only subtlety is that the rules will bring HR's a bit (not a lot, but a bit) more in play.

With the minimum PA per position, and the team period, no leeway for fatigue is planned. If you think it is going to be a problem, manually swap in a sub or two.

I should mention that at least some of your subs should probably have more than the 50-60 PA that are common on the $200k guys. You will probably need 500 600 or more total PA from your combined backups, at least the way I see it.